Camping Trip 2018

I am finally getting around to putting this camping trip post all together. It took me a while to get all the photos uploaded and my thoughts all down on paper, but here we are. Landon and I had the bright idea of going camping one day after we moved into our new space. In reality, we didn’t realize we were moving until after we booked our camp site, but that’s beside the point. Thursday evening, we unloaded all of our stuff into our new place and Friday afternoon we left to go camping with our church for the weekend. Needless to say, it was a little crazy – but hey, those are the things you remember most in life, right?

I was feeling super over packing and randomly grabbed a couple pieces of clothing, packed zero food, and grabbed our camping tub. We stopped at an Aldi on the way up to Wisconsin and got enough food for the next two days. Thankfully, my sweet friend Natalie (she is seriously the best people) offered to share a few meals with us, since we had just finished moving. Having two less meals to worry about was such a blessing and I felt a lot more comfortable just grabbing simple snacks/food items at Aldi before finishing the rest of our trip. After our Aldi stop, we drove another 2 hours until we got to the campsite. We went to Greenlake, Wisconsin and guys, the views were worth the 3 hour drive.

I mean…

We got to our campsite right as the worship time/devotional time started. Landon and a friend from church set up the tent, while Benaiah and I went to hangout with the others. Benaiah was so excited to see his friend, Louie. Benaiah and I found Louie and Natalie and hung out with them while the guys worked hard setting up camp. After devotions, we headed back to our campsite, put a very sleepy Benaiah down for bed, and sat around the campfire with friends, Sarah, Michael, Sam and Lydia and chatted the night away. There is something about being by a fire with friends that feels so refreshing. Landon and I didn’t make it too long before crashing ourselves.

Landon and I woke up to an early morning alarm (aka Benaiah). He slept so well in the tent, which made the early morning less painful knowing that he slept well for us, overall. After getting coffee and getting freshened up, we headed over to Joe, Natalie, and Louie’s site for breakfast. We all enjoyed scrambled eggs + sausage with potatoes cooked over a fire. There is something about cooking over a fire that makes eggs and potatoes taste about 153x better. The boys enjoyed sitting in leaves and playing with friends from church, while we chatted, drank coffee, and lounged around the fire. After an hour or so, we headed off to get ready for the day, while Louie + the fam went for a hike. Landon, Benaiah and I spent the rest of the day exploring, running, spending time at the beach and being together as a family. I met up with Joe and Natalie, while Landon went tubing. I usually am up for tubing or water sports, but after feeling gross and wet all day long, I didn’t feel like getting wet again. While Louie and Benaiah played together, Natalie and I hung out and soon after, we all shared dinner together. Natalie made the best Mexican stew and it totally hit the spot.

Once dinner was over, we all met up as a church for devotions, games, and s’mores. Although s’mores sounded delicious, Benaiah and I opted for an early bedtime (more like I opted for an early bedtime for him) and I hung out at the campsite while Landon helped with snacks. We chatted around the fire with Michael, Sarah, Sam and Lydia and others from the church fam before an unexpected rain drove us into our separate tents.

Thankfully, the rain didn’t last long and by Sunday morning we all woke up dry. Sunday morning, Landon and I tried our hand at cooking over the campfire. We were both pretty impressed with our skills and ended up enjoying eggs + potatoes with fruit for breakfast. I don’t know what it is about an open fire, but food always tastes good cooked over an open fire and eaten outside. Before our church service started, we packed the camping supplies up and loaded the car with as much as possible. Benaiah played with his friends, Hannah and Zoe who introduced him to a couple tree frogs. Needless to say, it made his day. Hannah also fed him pieces of trail mix, which quickly made Hannah the favored one 😉

Church started right around 10 and shortly afterwards, we said our goodbyes. Before heading out, we stopped at the water again and snapped a few photos as a family. It was so cute to watch Benaiah’s fascination with the water, frogs, and simple things in nature. I think that is what I loved most about camping this year. Overall, it was a MUCH better trip than last year (last year we had to order a pizza – we didn’t prep well) haha. We felt a lot more prepared for camping and enjoyed being out in nature with friends. It was restful to get away after a long couple days and really unplug mentally and emotionally from the stress of moving. I am already looking forward to next years camping trip and hopefully we won’t be coming off a of move.